Jess's little lost notebook

when i mentioned that there's autistic people who don't automatically have a large repository of knowledge for any one specific interest, i deliberately avoided using the term special interest. this is because I think that term, as used online, only covers a very limited range of what autistic interests and restricted repetitive behaviour can look like. it's fine to have one, but all the notes on that post talking about special interest this and that make me think people don't know that some autistic people don't have a special interest. they don't need to have one either. it's not even part of the diagnostic criteria, which, in the ICD 11 is "persistent restricted, repetitive and inflexible patterns of behaviour, interests, or activities that are clearly atypical or excessive for the person’s age and sociocultural context." so like you can watch the same 30 second video for 3 hours straight every day and that's part of your autism. but people online wouldn't classify it as a "special interest". because it is isn't, and that's okay. a lot of us don't have special interests. we don't relate to that term at all. there's nothing to talk about or learn about because the behaviour or activities that we do aren't related to a discrete topic or media franchise.